Shades of Deceit by David Archer

Author:David Archer [Archer, David & Katz, McKay]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-04-08T00:00:00+00:00

17

July, fifteen years ago…

Ella

THIS WAS the time of day when the anticipation began to build. Her class was almost over, and soon she’d get to go home and the rest of the day was hers. She couldn’t wait to meet Eli at the fountain. It was the mark of the end of the school day and the beginning of the blissful time between class and her parents getting home. She loved them, of course, and they gave her a good life, but they wanted to control every breath. They weren’t coping with her growing up, with her getting old enough to make her own decisions and be her own person. And with the missing and murdered girls…

She longed for those hours.

As she was counting down the minutes of the class ending, she suddenly remembered her parents were going to be home that afternoon. She wasn’t going to get the time to herself. They’d both decided to work from home, and they were going out to have a special family dinner that night. As she internally bemoaned the loss of that time to herself, she remembered that the teacher for her other class had asked her to come talk to him for a couple of minutes this afternoon. He had a couple of questions about the proposal for her term project and didn’t want to delay too long so she had as much time as possible to complete it. She needed to go by the library and get a book she was going to use for research and then go to his classroom to talk to him before she went to the fountain.

But she always had to wait for Eli. He was never there when she got there because his class ran slightly later than hers and then he usually took his time to get there. She always had to wait, which she hated, but she couldn’t be too mad at him. She was too glad for the time after class to care about a few minutes enjoying the sun. Sometimes if she was feeling particularly productive, it was a chance for her to get ahead on homework or go over her notes so she didn’t have to think about classes until evening came and her parents were back home. They loved to see her working on her classwork. They loved to peek over her shoulder and see what she was learning, make sure she was doing well.

Both of their children had chosen to take summer classes in their summer after senior year to get ahead for college, and their parents were fairly bursting at the seams with pride over it. Ella appreciated it, but she also needed time without that bearing down on her. They didn’t know everything about her. They might not be as proud if they did.

The class finally ended, and she gathered her belongings as fast as she could. She wanted to call Eli to let him know she had to go talk to her teacher. He

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